1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a method, system and apparatus, in particular, a lighting system and method of controlling the lighting system, comprising a computer readable medium and a programmable device capable of controlling and manipulating individually addressable lights to realize a visual display at a pixel level.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, the lighting industry has expanded into the area of decorative lighting, and more specifically, into the area of holiday decorations. Representative holiday lighting systems may contain controllers that are capable of controlling individual strands of lights. Thus, a light controlling device is often limited to controlling an entire strand of incandescent and/or LED lights in unison. The controlling device is often a commercially available controller limited to manipulating an entire strand of lights in performing simple functions. In particular, light controllers on holiday light systems may allow a user to turn a light strand on or off. Other light controllers may allow manipulation of an entire light strand to displaying various colors, and/or perform various actions such as intermittent display, or streaming display. However, this method of controlling an entire strand in unity confines the manipulation of light displays to large scale manipulation. To display arbitrary images and/or other media at the pixel level using commercially available controllers and light strands is impossible. Alternatively, other controllable lighting systems may use a light display panel, such as an LED display panel. An LED display panel is capable of integrating individual LEDs together to display an image. While these types of LED display panels may display images on a pixel level, the panels are limited to the manufacturer determined position of lights on the panel. Lights on such panels are unable to be manipulated into varying positions, images, shapes and/or integrated into other non-pre-determined displays as the spatial positioning of individual lights may not be determined. A method of positioning and manipulating individual lights is desired, particularly, a system comprised of randomly distributed individual lights that can be monitored, programmed, and utilized is desired to achieve a level of control of individual lights of random positions.